The invention relates to network audio broadcasting, and more particularly to a satellite broadcasting system for network programming and broad-based advertising to be efficiently played over remote affiliate local stations, such as in small communities. The system includes automatic and substantially tamper-proof verification of the advertising actually broadcast by each local station, and automatic billing of advertisers and issuance of payments to the local stations based on this verification.
In radio broadcasting, it is often desirable to broadcast certain programming of broad appeal to a widely scattered audience in different parts of a region or of an entire country of several adjacent countries. For example, taped music of a certain type may appeal to specific audiences which are spread across the nation.
One method of disseminating prepackaged music or other programming over broad geographical areas has been to prepare many copies of tapes or records containing the programming, and to ship the tapes individually to radio stations in scattered locations. In this type of system the tapes or records may be played at times selected by the local stations, so that programming is not simultaneous at different stations. Periodically, each station must obtain additional tapes from the source, for variety of programming.
Another type of system in more recent use has been a broadcast of music programming by satellite, which enables a single uplink broadcasting center to reach a very wide geographical area. Scattered remote local stations can pick up the network audio and play it as they choose in their own local broadcasts. There has been a need in such network satellite audio broadcasting for an efficient system providing for the local broadcast or national or broad-based advertising, such as from national advertisers having stores or outlets throughout the wide geographical area, even in remote local communities. In the past, when broad-based advertising was broadcast by local stations, verification of the actual broadcast of each advertisement was usually addressed by affidavits of the local stations, to the effect that certain advertisements were actually broadcast. Such affidavits have been required by advertising agencies before payment would be released. This has necessitated a considerable amount of paper work and manual record keeping, and it also placed full reliance on the verity of the local station personnel.
There has been a need in the broadcasting industry for a much more efficient system for distributing network audio programming and broad-based advertising over remote local stations, and for verifying the broadcast of advertisements by the local stations, and this is a principal object of the present invention described below.
The following U.S. Patents have some pertinence to the present invention: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,766,374 (Hoffmann), 3,143,705 (Currey), 3,845,391 (Crosby), 4,025,851 (Haselwood), 4,130,801 (Prygoff), 4,230,990 (Lert), 4,054,753 (Kaul), 3,124,749 (Craig), 3,838,221 (Schmidt), 3,710,027 (Herter) 4,245,341 (Hutton), and 3,982,075 (Jefferis). Some of the systems of these patents were concerned with monitoring radio or television broadcasts to determine whether partiular programming, such as advertising, is being played by a local station. Some used a pattern recognition process alone, and some used coded signals that were recognized by a monitor. Some (e.g., Kaul and Schmidt) included a feature of using databursts for time synchronization in a satellite-linked network, both being TDMA systems (Time Division Multiple Access), which the present invention is not. Others (such as Herter) show addressability of individual stations using databursts. None of the prior patents dislcoses a system with the special features and the degree of automation in broadcast verification, bookkeeping, and general data mangement characteristic of the present invention described below.